Carolyn Fry
by Dragoon-Yue
Summary: When the bioraptor dragged her way into the darkness Carolyn Fry died... But not by being eaten. Years later the Company - wanting some answers about their missing ship - found her body in a cave and revived her corpse, believing that all they'd have is a body from which they could extract memories. They got a bit more than they had expected.
1. Death

**A/N:** For those of you who may have read _Connections_ and are still waiting for the sequel... I am so sorry! I'm still working on my original story, but I just saw the new Riddick movie and a plot bunny attacked me. It's been gnawing at my brain. I had to write it or I was going to crawl up the walls. Once I am done writing the first arc of my original story - that I can't seem to get anyone to read - I swear I will write that sequel.

Anyway, please enjoy this everyone!

* * *

"Not for me." His words hung empty in the air, hollow and meaningless, "Not for me!"

His shout was emptier then his first denial and all Carolyn could think as he disappeared from her view was that Richard B. Riddick had better not make her death mean nothing. Any coherent thoughts were obliterated a moment later as her entire body was violently jarred, knocking her out of her shock... And the alien predator's grasp. For a breath-taking, painful moment, she was free-falling – her blood seeming to flow upward in crimson streamers she couldn't see – before she collided with stone and bounced down the stepped canyon wall until she hit the muddy ground. Survival instinct was the only thing that kept her from screaming.

Her senses came more alive a second later than she could remember them having ever been. The creatures were fighting near her; head butting, thrashing and snapping teeth. One came close to her and another tackled it. The two creatures started fighting as well and Carolyn Fry realized that they were fighting over her. On pure instinct and adrenalin she started crawling and dragging herself over to the only source of light that she could see; blue-white and pure. Faint, but their. It was her only chance and she had said that she would die for them, not for him. Carolyn had every intention of sticking to that.

It turned out to be another cave with the glowing maggots. She just barely got out of the predator's reach in time, but still got another, nasty would from their claws along her calf. Carolyn pressed herself against the back wall of the cave and sat there, her legs drawn up to her chest, trying to make herself as small as possible. She stared unblinkingly at the cave mouth, watching the creatures fighting and trying to get to her. Dizzily she realized that she just might, possibly, survive if she could stay in the cave until the eclipse was over.

By the time it was it had been five years and the glowing maggots had eaten some of the flesh off from her corpse... And turned into more of the predatory creatures. The freezing temperatures that came from the lack of sun preserved the rest of her body, keeping them from eating the rest of her. When the suns finally returned the landscape quickly turned from arctic to desert again and Carolyn Fry's body mummified before it could even rot.

A few months later her remains were found – by accident – by an agent of the Company when they noticed the piles of bones around the cave mouth. The Company wanted to know what had happened to their ship and reviving her flesh to extract the memories was their best option, short of cloning someone... Which was a none option, as they couldn't find any genetic samples. So they cleared the bones away from the cave and retrieved her body. But when they revived the body they encountered a problem; they weren't just dealing with a body, they had a person.

* * *

**A/N:** So, anyone curious where this is going? Please let me know if you guys are actually reading this!


	2. Revival

**A/N:** Sorry that this is so short, but I hope that you guys enjoy it!

* * *

Carolyn wandered, stumbling through a grey landscape of muted light. Every movement – even the slightest stirring of sand – created strange, indecipherable after images the blurred and bled into eachother. Where was she? Why was she there? Where did the monsters go?

"Limbo." A woman's voice said behind her, causing Carolyn to whirl around.

There was no one.

"Who said that?" Carolyn asked, her voice as muted as the light.

No one answered.

"WHO SAID THAT?" She yelled, her voice echoing back to her with increasing volume until she was doubled over with her hands over her ears, trying to block the agonizing cacophony out.

"Now, now, don't be so melodramatic." The voice admonished and – just like that – there was silence, "Use your senses."

The words brought an old memory to the back of her mind, whispering things she had been taught as a child, things that she didn't remember. The landscape was visually too disorienting, so Carolyn closed her eyes and used her nose and ears. All of the sounds were strange, oddly distorted in nature. The scents were... She wasn't sure. It had been too long since she had last **really** used her nose properly. No, wait... She had used it – instinctively – when she had spoken to Riddick alone, asking to see his eyes. For the life of her she couldn't – even at the time, in that moment – figure out what it had been about his scent, of all things, that had set off her warning bells. All of them had been screaming one thing: Aggressive, dangerous, submit, obey, do not anger. At the end she had ignored the warnings, but it had saved two lives... Two lives that she had been willing to throw away only hours before. Richard B. Riddick was either the best thing, or the worst thing to have ever happened in her life. She couldn't decide which.

Carolyn took a deep breath and found only one other scent in the swirling, muted air. Following her nose and trusting in her instincts, she finally opened her eyes and found Shirah (Carolyn had no idea how, or why, she knew the woman's name) standing in an oasis of colour and plants. The sights nearly had Carolyn in tears and she didn't know why, except that there was a terrible, aching hole in her chest and something eating at her insides from the centre out. It took her a few moments to get herself under control.

"Hello Carolyn. I haven't seen you since you were a child."

"Hi."

"Is that all you have to say to your godmother?"

Carolyn opened her mouth to reply when suddenly she did remember, the horrific memories assailing her, battering her to her knees. And then she was ripped away from the grey world with it's green oasis and Shirah. The last thing that she saw was her godmother's confused, shocked and worried expression.

Carolyn woke with a loud gasp, a flash of green-white light erupting out of her and reviving a dead potted plant as her entire body arched up so far that she came crashing down onto the floor on her side. All of it was a blur of sudden sensation and motion and then pain all along one side and exploding across her head where it collided with the metal floor. She didn't notice any of it.

The next day Carolyn Fry was in severe shock, curled into a foetal position, still on the floor and icy cold, but alive. This had never happened before when a corpse, years old, was revived. Not one person knew what to make of it.


	3. Instinct

**A/N:** Enjoy! And pretty please review!

* * *

Carolyn was escorted down the cold corridors of the shaceship wondering what she was going to tell them. The Company wanted to know what had happened to the _Hunter Gratzner_ and she wasn't sure where to start, or what to leave out. She couldn't tell them about Riddick. Although she considered things even between her and the escaped convict Carolyn did not trust the Company to leave Jack and Imam alone, which left her a bit stuck.

The pilot was jarred out of her thoughts by the 'swish' of a door opening just inches from her nose when she nearly collided with it. The people escorting her gave her odd looks. It was those expressions that gave her inspiration; she'd pretend to be disoriented (as opposed to just being absent-minded). The blond was ushered into a cold, metal room with a bolted-down, metal table and two bolted-down, metal chairs. Mounted in the upper corners of the walls were holographic cameras and in the centre of the ceiling was a fractal camera, which would record everything in the room down to the molecular level.

Alarm bells went off in Carolyn's head.

That was expensive tech. That one camera alone would require a computer the size of a space frigate just to record five minutes of footage. How long had she been dead for that they would be so interested in her? It suddenly sunk in that she was on a very expensive, probably humungous, ship. Carolyn could almost guarantee that there was a large fleet to go with this one ship, which was most likely the heart of said fleet.

She was led to the chair by her escort and Carolyn gingerly – still deliberately acting slightly disoriented – sat down in one of the chairs. Her escort walked out and she was left to sit and stew for awhile. They were likely waiting to see what she would do, how she would behave. Carolyn wasn't sure how long she had been sitting there by herself, but she kept up the act the entire time, praying that she was convincing enough.

The door finally opened and the blond pilot didn't have to pretend to jump. When a man in military body armour walked into the room and took a seat across from her Carolyn knew that her acting was going to have to be top-notch because this was nothing more and nothing less than an interrogation. Her best bet was to avoid details as much as possible and if she screwed up pretend – as convincingly as possible – to be dazedly confused.

He grilled her for six hours and by the end of it she was exhausted. They took her back to her quarters, locked her in and she crawled into bed and dreamt of (of all people) Richard B. Riddick being chased across an alien landscape of snow and ice to escape Mercs. The truly strange part of the dream was that he had hair... And a beard.

When she woke the next day-cycle Carolyn finally realized that she had been acting on instincts that she'd never had before. Since when did she question the Company? Since when did she not trust them? Pulling herself off of the bunk (her blankets were on the floor, as per-usual) she stumbled into the bathroom and, wishing that she had the simple luxury of splashing cold water on her face, looked at herself in the mirror. Seeing what was reflected Carolyn jumped back violently and collided with the opposite wall.

A dark-skinned woman with her hair in multiple, tiny braids was staring back at her, a jungle in full bloom behind her. Carolyn's heart started pounding in her ears as the scene spread to encompass the entire room, following the woman as she stepped forward.

"Do not trust them." The woman said firmly.

And then Carolyn woke up with a start back in the medbay with pale-faced doctors hovering over her.

"What?" She asked, confused, "What happened? Why am I here?"

"Because you vanished for two hours without a trace." A voice said from somewhere around her feet.

Startled, Carolyn zeroed in on the voice. It belonged to an older man that screamed 'MILATARY' in a capital letters.

"I did?" She asked faintly.

Carolyn tried to remember what had happened after the woman gave her warning, but all the pilot could summon up was a vague impression of a long conversation and a splitting headache. The man all-but glared at her gaugingly for several moments before ordering everyone out. All but one of them left. The one that remained turned out to be a telepath, whom the military man had make an attempt at invading her mind. An image of the woman with the braids flashed behind Carolyn's squeezed-shut eyes and rebuffed the person so hard that they dropped dead almost instantly.

From then on it was a blur of chaos, blood and violence. When it passed Carolyn found herself in a ship headed away from the Company fleet and wondering what had happened. For some reason she had the sickening feeling that it had mostly been her doing and not the braid-woman's.

_'Shirah.'_ The woman's voice echoed in Carolyn's mind, _'My name is Shirah. And you're right; for the most part the carnage was not my doing, but neither was it yours.'_

Carolyn didn't have the courage to ask what that meant and went to go find someplace to sleep. Perhaps she'd have another weird dream about Riddick. It would certainly be far better than the nightmares that she was anticipating. The former Company pilot had no such luck and woke several times from nightmares before she finally did dream of Riddick, right when his ship came within a kilometre of her own.

A mark on the small of her back glowed brightly as he passed by.

* * *

**A/N:** As I said at the top; please review! Just so that I know that you guys are reading and enjoying this!


	4. Nebula

**A/N:** Okay, here's the next installment of the story. Sorry that it's still short...

moonlitepssion - Thank-you so much for the review and I'm glad that you're enjoying this!

To Juiles Grimm and The Little Lost Lamb - I am so glad that you two both like this story enough to fave it! It makes me so happy to know that people are enjoying the story that much! ^-^

* * *

Carolyn tried to work the controls with increasing frustration. It seemed that at some point before she had come back to her senses while escaping the Company she had locked in coordinates and then locked herself out of the controls. If she couldn't get the controls back then she was going to have no choice but to put herself in cryosleep and hope that she doesn't crash again... Particularly because she had no provisions. Still, Carolyn argued with the controls for hours before the ship's safety protocols kicked in and forced her into cryosleep anyway by strapping her into the pilots chair and turning it into a cryotube.

"What kind of ship has an automated feature like this?" She demanded, panic in her voice.

_"A Mark 2 Emergency Escape Shuttle of a Class 1 Medical Sciences Research Frigate."_ The computer replied, much to Carolyn's shock.

It was the answer itself – not the fact that she had gotten one, though that **was** unexpected – that made her pause in shock. The ship (having an AI) took the opportunity to stick her with a needle that sedated her seconds later.

* * *

Carolyn came too about four months later to the sight of a massive nebula looming ever closer.

_"Please be advised Passenger-"_

"Carolyn." She interrupted distractedly, "My name is Carolyn."

_"Please be advised Carolyn that I do not have sufficient shielding to keep you alive if you remain in the cockpit. Please evacuate to the rear portion where the shielding is better."_

"Can't you just unlock the controls and let me fly us around this?" Carolyn asked, hoping to finally be able to take control of the ship.

_"Negative. That is not a viable option."_

"And why is that?" She asked, trying – again – to unlock the controls anyway.

Images and scenes of the _hunter Gratzner's_ crash danced in gleeful abandon through her head and she reflected that it may have left her a bit more traumatized than she had, at first, thought. It's easy to not realize how badly one has been effected by any given event when you don't even get the chance to process it.

_"I am under orders from Lt. Graham to not let you take the controls."_

So it had been him and not her who had set up the navigation. She was going to kill her brother.

"Did he say why?" She asked as mildly as she could.

_"No. Lt. Graham only informed me that he would rip out all of my wiring and circuitboards and eject them out into space."_

Translation: He'd eviscerate the ship. Why, exactly, had she been so afraid of Riddick? Oh yeah... Because she'd had no guarantee that he wouldn't kill her at the time, unlike when she was dealing with her – currently infuriating – brother. But that didn't matter at the moment because she had to get into the back portion of the small ship.

"Ship." Carolyn called as the doors swished shut behind her.

_"Lt. Graham named me Rose."_

"Rose... About how long will it be before we reach our destination?"

_"Fifteen hours, ten minutes and forty two minutes."_

Well, at least she was almost there. Wait a minute. That meant that her destination was inside of the nebula.

* * *

**A/N:** As always, pretty please review! It keeps me writing!


	5. Message

Carolyn felt the entire ship jolt. Being an experienced pilot she braced herself and kept her balance.

"Rose...?" She asked worriedly, "What was that?"

_"Unknown. I appear to be docked with something."_

"Did you get a look at it?" She asked, looking around to see where someone might board from.

_"Negative. To much interference from the particles, gases and radiation."_

A loud thump sounded from above Carolyn's head. Her eyes snapped upward, images of the creatures from the planet the Hunter Gratzner had crashed on taunting her. Fighting to control her breathing she asked Rose what that noise was.

_"A Furian and a Furian Hound."_ The ship replied.

"That's impossible!" Carolyn exclaimed, "They're extinct and have been for decades!"

_"Incorrect. My files indicate that this colony houses one hundred thousand Furians and counting."_

That was a terrifying thought.

"W-why would my brother send me to the most feared race of Humans to ever colonize a planet?"

_"Message playback."_

The lights dimmed and a hologram of Graham – older than she remembered, with salt and pepper hair, though his eyes were still the same intense blue – flickered and then solidified in the middle of the room. Creating the image were five small projectors on the ceiling. One was in the centre and the others were equilateral to each other. Graham's voice filled the room.

_"If you're getting this message then it means that you've arrived at your destination and asked why I sent you to a bunch of Furians... Ever since the Purge when you were thirteen years old you have suppressed your memories of what you are. I suppose that it was to be expected; you did share in the deaths of an entire generation. It nearly drove you mad. Over the years I have tried to make you remember, but to no avail. Every time you do you go into shock almost immediately... So do not try to remember, but do not deny what you are. I've watched you suppress the animal side of yourself fore years. Don't. Not here. If you do you will not survive. You are __**Furian**__. You are strong, you are a survivor, you are fierce and untameable... You are Furian and you need to embrace that. One last thing..."_

Graham hesitated a moment, intense emotions playing across his face before he managed to school his features. Even so his eyes glassy and red-rimmed and when he spoke again his voice was tight and he had to swallow.

_"I don't know how it is that you came back after you died... But I am so glad that you did. Please... Don't die again. I couldn't take it."_

The hologram winked out without further ado. The lights remained dim. A moment later the sound of hydraulics filled the small space and Carolyn, trying to fight back tears, turned to the source of the sound. She watched as the top and bottom of the hatch went in opposite directions, the lower half turning into stairs. The first thing to look through the hatch was a reptilian canine creature big enough and sturdy enough to be comparable to a draft horse... With talons and teeth that looked like they belonged in the mouth of a similarly sized T-Rex. It got nudged aside by an equally large cat of some kind that had both stripes and spots. Both had the silvery eye shine that she had seen on Riddick's eyes.

Carolyn swallowed hard and wondered if those things were going to try and eat her.


	6. Hounds

The cat and hound had been coaxed back from the open hatch and a man now stood at the bottom of the steps staring up at Carolyn as though the sight of her left him slightly stunned. He was tallish, brown-haired and green-eyed with a square jaw, sharp nose and the fine eyebrows that – oddly enough, though she didn't remember it – were normal for the entire race of Furians. The man was in his prime, though not quite as big as she remembered Riddick being, but then that could just be faulty memory on her part. The convict tended to leave a rather large impression on the psyche.

"Well now..." The man finally said, "Linny's all grown up."

An echo of a memory ricocheted through her skull of a young boy promising to marry her when they grew up.

"Do I know you...?" She asked cautiously.

"Ah yes, that's right... Your brother mentioned that you have amnesia." He held his hand out to her, as though to help her down the stairs, "My name is Conway Cait."

His surname meant 'cat' and his given name meant 'hound of the plains', so it was a bit contradictory to a lot of Humans, but made perfect sense to Furians.

Cautiously, Carolyn took the proffered hand and let him lead her down the stairs. When she was at the bottom the Hound on top of Rose jumped down, startling Carolyn half out of her skin. The creature was brilliant green with equally bright blue, lateral stripes down the length of it's strong back (covering the top of the tail), across it's shoulders and hips and also down by the paws. The massive, muscular creature turned to face her, it's dark (almost black) eyes lacking the silvery shine that had been on the other two creatures' eyes – and was immediately affectionate; wagging his tail, licking her face and then sitting down and sniffing at her. Most draft horses are taller at the shoulder than a grown man. This hound was about the size of a large one. It was very understandable that Carolyn was certain that this creature would kill her by accident in it's attempts to be friendly.

"This," Conway said, indicating the Peacock-hued Hound, "Is Ma'iek. He was raised with you until the Necromonger Purge."

Carolyn stared wide-eyed at Ma'iek, trying to remember it – him – but nothing came to her.

"I'd let you get used to him before having you two live together-" Ma'iek interrupted Conway with a terrifying, basso growl that vibrated their bones.

"But," Conway went one without skipping a beat, "He'd turn me into a, fiery, screaming torch."

Carolyn turned to face him and asked, "**Pardon**?"

"Oh, yeah... You wouldn't remember that – and Ma'iek will you stop growling at me? I'm not stupid enough to try and keep you away from her."

The growling stopped with a grunt.

"Thank-you. As I was saying... The male Hounds can breath chemical fire via glands in their lungs. Females have a venomous bite."

"Ah. Those are very tough lungs."

"Yeah, the rest of them is like that too."

Of course.

Ten minutes later and she was being escorted to her quarters while they pulled Rose all the way into the hanger before the radiation damaged her AI matrix.

* * *

Carolyn looked around her quarters as Ma'iek got himself settled on his couch (yes, he had his own couch). The space was large, with everything far enough from each other to accommodate the Hound's massive size. She spent some time looking around and finding out where everything was before going into the spacious bathroom and getting cleaned up. It was only then that she realized that she was covered in blood. That fact took a second to sink in and then she was heaving... And then dry heaving.

When she was done Carolyn scrubbed herself more thoroughly than she ever had in her life. Once she had her... Pyjamas (apparently she hadn't gotten changed before killing a bunch of people) and underwear on to soak she then crawled into bed naked.

She dreamed again of Riddick – and woke up in the middle of the night to run to the bathroom and throw up. Again. Carolyn told herself over and over again that even Riddick could not kick a machete with enough force and precision to go flying across the room, take off about half a grown man's head and **still** embed itself in the ribbed, sheet-metal wall. For some reason she didn't quite believe herself.

Ma'iek made worried noises outside the closed bathroom door while pawing at it. She knew instinctively that he could tear right through the metal if he decided that he wanted to. Carolyn sighed. That thing scared the living daylights out of her, but she wanted her bathroom door intact and if he broke it then she would probably end up having to explain about her nightmare. For some reason she was very reluctant to do so. So she let him sleep with her for the rest of the night. The entire time he kept his head on the bed, which was more than a little frightening, but she eventually fell back to sleep. She woke to vague echos of a dream that reminded her of what had happened back on that planet she didn't want to think about, but they faded quickly enough and she got on with her day and trying not to be afraid of Ma'iek.


	7. Fight

Carolyn watched as two men viciously fought it out amid a ring of people. She had tried to leave, but the crowd was too dense. Instead she could only try to stay as far from the inner edge of the ring as possible and avoid being shoved into the middle of the fight... Which could be lethal. One of the combatants got in a good shot and the group moved violently around her, half of them cheering, the other half getting upset. For a moment she was pulled back and Carolyn thought that she might be able to make her escape.

Instead she got shoved into the ring and knocked one of the fighters over, preventing the other one from winning. Both were unhappy at the intrusion and the one that she had knocked over got up as she scrambled to her feet. Growling he picked her up by her upper arms, leaving her feet to dangle. Thankfully, before either could do something to her, another figure – female – landed in the ring from above. The colony of Furians was made up of inter-connected and repurposed spaceships. In the case of the one the fight was taking place in the only useful part of the ancient colony ship had been the hull so it had been gutted and better shielding added. However, some of the support superstructure has visible anyway and some people sat amid the crossbeams to watch the fight. That was where the woman had jumped down from. She had dark, curly hair, grey eyes, full lips, a doll's nose and a slightly square face. She was wearing pragmatic boots, loose, reinforced, brown pants and an undyed, long-sleeved, ragged shirt with long sleeves. Something about her seemed strikingly familiar.

"What do you want halfbreed?" The one holding Carolyn asked with a sneer.

"An excuse to slit your throat." She replied pleasantly, then tilted her head – smile still in place – so that she was looking at him from under her brows, "I'm sure Graham will understand if I kill you because you hurt his sister. You know how he is."

Everyone suddenly became aware of the knife in her hands that she was playing with. They all wondered where it had com from. The answer to that was 'from up her sleeve'; it was why she wore them so long.

"What the fuck do I care about that fag?"

The mystery woman's smile took on a lethal edge as it spread a little wider. Carolyn decided that she was creepy. Then what the man holding her had said sank in and anger overrode common sense. Her shin connected very firmly with his groin. He dropped her with a gasp, his hands flying to his now-bruised member as he stumbled back and doubled over.

"The term, **asshole**," Carolyn snapped, furious, "Is 'homosexual'. Look it up."

Shocked silence descended.

Furians, as a general rule, were rather cruel to anyone who wasn't heterosexual. This led to Betas. Homosexual males and females who survived by being more aggressive and skilled than everyone else except the Alphas, whom they avoided. They were, as a result and for good reason, considered to be among the Furian race's best warriors. The situation wasn't fair to them, but that wasn't how the Betas saw it; their hard lives were what had made them so strong, what had made them such great warriors.

The Furians of the colony had come to expect Graham's ward – the woman with the knife – to come to his defence (she was one of three people he truly cared about), but it surprised them that Carolyn would do so as well... And so blatantly. Defending a Beta was a fast way to be ostracized; no matter how much a Furian cared about a Beta they would never directly defend one like Carolyn just had. However, they all knew that Graham's sister had not been raised among Furians after she got amnesia, so her actions confirmed that she really was Graham's sister. Before anyone could decide how to react the mystery woman grabbed Carolyn and dragged her away. The crowd parted around them like they were contagious.


	8. Lecture

In a hallway leading to an airlock, out of the crowd's hearing, Carolyn was being dragged along like a child and it was starting to piss her off. Finally, she yanked her arm free and the other woman whirled around to face her, demanding in an angry hiss, "Are you completely stupid?"

"Excuse me? That was my brother they were-"

"I know!" She snapped, "But you may have just made an enemy out of everyone in that room."

The woman went to grab Carolyn's arm again.

"I don't need to be dragged around like a child." Carolyn told her angrily as she pulled her arm out of reach.

The other woman gave her an irritated glare and said, "There are a lot shadows in this hallway that people can pull you into and ghost your ass. I'm not dragging you along like a child; I'm making certain no one kills you."

With that she grabbed Carolyn's arm again and they started walking, this time with the blond walking next to... Actually she had no idea what the woman's name was, or what her relation was to Graham. She asked.

"Kyra A. Badd – I didn't pick the name. Apparently my mother thought it was funny."

"What's the 'A' stand for?"

"Alexy."

"Kyra Alexy Badd..." Carolyn mused, trying out the name, then she had a thought and asked, "Are you related to Jack B. Badd?"

Kyra stopped and whirled around to face Carolyn, her regard intense as she stared the blond in the eyes.

"My twin sister." Kyra said far to calmly, "Where did you see her?"

Carolyn only hesitated a moment before explain to her the very bare basics of what had happened after the _Hunter Gratzner_ had crashed. Kyra stopped her as soon as the subject of Riddick came up. It seemed that Jack had been chasing him.

"Why would Jack have been chasing Riddick?"

"Because he's our biological father."

Well... That was unexpected. They started walking again. After processing the idea of Riddick being a father Carolyn finally asked why she would have made enemies by defending her brother. Kyra explained about the Betas.

Carolyn and Kyra stepped out of the airlock to find Conway Cait standing there, waiting with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. Behind him Ma'iek paced restlessly.

"What were you thinking, leaving the Hound behind?" He asked in a deadly, quiet voice that set off alarms in both women's heads.

Kyra agreed with him, but Conway's simmering temper made the younger woman want to defend Carolyn before he lost it. She opened her mouth to do so, but Ma'iek growled at her. Kyra closed her mouth. A growling Hound was not something to ignore.

"What?" Conway demanded, his attention still squarely fixed on Carolyn, "Nothing to stay for yourself?"

Carolyn's temper suddenly reared up.

"I may have been only thirteen the last time that you saw me," Carolyn bit out, "But I am not a child anymore. Don't treat me like one."

"Why not? You left Ma'iek at your quarters and went out without anyone."

"I don't need an escort-"

"Yes, you **do**. You're new here. People will want to test you, to establish their dominance over you. Since your brother failed to inform you allow me to explain basic Furian psychology to you: We live in a pack structure. We fight. The Furian race was adapted to a world that wanted to kill us – the weak **die**. They are given no quarter, no mercy. You survive, or you don't and everyone must contribute. Right now you are a burden and that makes you a liability. Furians don't like liabilities. As far as they're concerned the only useful thing that you could do is contribute to the number of children. **You could have gotten raped**. There are no Alphas here to keep everyone in line. This colony is barely controlled anarchy. You got off lucky. If Kyra hadn't been there one of the men in there could have claimed you and no one would have stopped him. They would have considered it your own damn fault. Graham or I would have killed them as soon as we knew, but it would never undo what was done. Do. Not. **Ever**. Go. **Anywhere**. Without... Ma'iek."


	9. Q&A

**A/N:** IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ BELOW!

I accidentally dropped a chapter... So it's been added. Chapter 5. Please go read.

* * *

Carolyn was stuck walking between Kyra and Conway as the latter continued to lecture her about how stupid she had been. Behind them Ma'iek followed with mincing steps. Finally, just as Carolyn was ready to erupt Kyra cut in over his tirade.

"Conway! I think she's gets the idea." The dark-haired woman said pointedly, giving him a look to match her tone.

He subsided, still scowling murderously. The whole situation had scared a few years off of his life expectancy and he wasn't handling it as well as he could be. Carolyn, for her part, didn't realize that the anger was a defensive mask he used out of sheer reflex to hide vulnerabilities that could get him killed... And caring about a defenceless woman – a defenceless anybody – enough to become scared when they were in danger was a major vulnerability.

* * *

When they reached Carolyn's quarters the blond refused to let Conway in on the grounds that they were both too angry to stay civil. Kyra Ma'iek backed her up. Kyra, in turn, was allowed to enter since Carolyn had questions for the other woman.

Once the door was closed and locked Kyra said, "Alright; spill."

The blond pilot asked the first question that she could articulate.

"What's the big deal about these... Alphas?"

"Sit down." Kyra told her, "This may take a while."

Carolyn complied, taking the big, plush arm chair while Kyra sat across from her on the Human couch. Ma'iek lazily made his way over to his and made himself comfortable on it.

"Alphas, Kyra explained, "Are the most aggressive of our race. They're so fucking aggressive that their pheromones will beat other people into submission for them and – if that doesn't work – the Alpha will make them submit anyway. Unless they're dealing with another Alpha. They generally avoid fighting with each other for some reason. I think it's laziness. Anyway, something about being an Alpha makes them very parental and, well, they'll keep the rest of use in line simply to keep the children safe. Then there's the Furian Alpha... This man, or woman, is the Alpha among Alphas. They are the pinnacle of what it means to be Furian and Alpha and they have some... Extra... Abilities."

"Such as?"

"Psychic, mystical... No one's really sure what the nature of their abilities are, just that it seems to be a direct result of their nervous systems being hyper-wired and that they vary from one to the next. The last one – the last Furian Alpha – could channel the will of our entire race through herself and use it as an... Energy form... No one was ever able to get readings on it, but whoever was on the receiving end... They usually didn't survive."

"Who was she? I mean, what was her name?"

"Shirah."

Wait, wasn't that the woman claiming to be Carolyn's godmother?

"You were the only one that she – apparently – taught the ability to." Kyra went on, taking note of Carolyn's surprise (she was going to have to teach the blond woman how to hide her emotions better), "Your brother claims that you felt the deaths of everyone the Necromongers... 'Purged'. He says that's why you don't remember anything and why he raised you among Mainstreamers."

"'Mainstreamers?"

"Mainstreamers." She said like that explained it, but continued when Carolyn just gave her a blank look, "Mainstream Humans who haven't been heavily altered to survive on the more Human-hostile planets."

"Oh. I've never heard that term before."

"Really? Huh. Odd. Maybe it's just a Furian term... Anyway, where was I?"

"What's this Necromonger Purge I keep hearing about?"

"...That's when the Lord Marshal of the Necromongers came and told use that he demanded that every Furian boy be killed. You and the other Oracles apparently saw all of this coming, so many of the pregnant woman and young boys were sent away by then. Long story short; the Lord Marshal destroyed Furia. Graham said that you screamed like your soul was being torn apart when it happened. For a year after that the Lord Marshal hunted down as many of the boys as he could. He ripped Shirah's unborn son out of her womb and strangled him with his own umbilical cord. After that you woke up one day with no recollection that you, or your brother, were Furian or what had happened. You lost your powers as an Oracle as well. At least that's what Graham told me."

"A-an Oracle?"

"Yeah. You could predict the future. We think that Shirah may have been one as well."

"Oh. Okay."

Ma'iek shifted on his couch to get comfortable, drawing Carolyn's attention and reminding her of another question that she had been meaning to ask.

"Why doesn't Ma'iek have the eyeshine that the rest of the Hounds do?"

"Oh, that. I was wondering when you were going to ask about it. Hounds always have a Furian counterpart – although the reverse can't be said. For the most part they're usually referred to as the 'Other Half' by their Furian Counterpart. Ma'iek's counterpart is the new Furian Alpha. It seems that one of the new Furian Alpha's abilities is to permanently take on an aspect of a Hound."

Well... Damn.

"So the Furian Alpha is the same age as me."

"Maybe. Maybe not. A hound can be born before, or after, their Furian Counterpart. It varies."

"Oh. So, why did he latch on to me?"

"He didn't. You latched onto him. Then he decided that he liked you. You have a Counterpart by the way."

"I what?"

"Yeah... Ma'iek's tried to mate with her more than once. Oh, right, you probably don't know this... The Cats and the Hounds are the same species, just different genders. We just call them Cats and Hounds because the resemble cats and hounds. They're actually somewhere between the two types of animals."

"Oh." She was saying that a lot she noticed, "Okay."

"...I'm surprised that you you haven't asked any questions about the Alphas."

"A... Mainstreamer... Getting a shine job on their eyes usually results in them going crazy if it's successful, right?"

"Never heard of a time when it didn't."

"Then I think that I may have met the Alpha Furian."

Kyria suddenly leaned forward eagerly from her seat and asked, "Who are they? Where and when did you meet them?"

Leaning forward herself, Carolyn placed her elbows on her knees, laced her fingers together and said, "I think I need to tell you the rest of what happened after the _Hunter Gratzner_ crashed."

Kyra listened as Carolyn told her everything from start to finish, even including the parts that she wasn't proud of herself for. By the time that Carolyn was done Kyra knew that whether Carolyn was right about Riddick being the Furian Alpha or not, was definitely **a** Alpha Furian. It seemed that Jack had been right about their father. She and her sister had been getting called 'halfbreeds who would never survive on Furia' since their mother had brought them to the colony for no reason it seemed. Irony. Such a wonderful thing... At least when it didn't make one want to bash people's heads into hard objects repeatedly.


End file.
